The Incredible Journey of Harriet Malfoy
by Stray-89
Summary: "I was seventeen from a fishing family, a family that was starving.  I was always a bit wild, I should have listened to my Father, I should have listened to my Mother.  But I didn't. Real hunger, it takes you over, it doesn't leave you room to think."
1. Chapter 1

The Incredible Journey of Harriet Malfoy

So this is a retelling of the story the convict Mary Bryant, interspersed with the Harry Potter characters and hopefully personalities, at least somewhat. This has been inspired by and some choice dialogue borrowed from the Australian tow part series "The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant" it is fantastic and I believe that someone has put it up on YouTube if you want to watch some of it. I have also used some parts from the historical records (and ignored others completely) and also from " The Girl From Botany Bay" by Carolly Erickson. I obviously own none of these nor any familiar characters from HP.

It will probably be very slow going, but I wanted to get the first part out there to see what you all think of it. It is harder to write than anything that I have written before, but I really want to see this one through.

PART ONE

_"I was seventeen from a fishing family, a family that was starving. I was always a bit wild, I should have listened to my Father, I should have listened to my Mother. But I didn't. Real hunger, it takes you over, it doesn't leave you room to think." _

There had never been enough food on the table when I was a child, and especially now. My father James, is a fisherman and my mother does what she can. I am my parents sixth child, but I only have one other sister older than I. My mother Lily birthed thirteen babies, and miraculously didn't die herself in the process. But of those thirteen babies, only I and my three sisters survived. I had brothers and sisters, most died before their first birthday, but some lived for a few years.

I was all sorts that took them from us, the cold, the hunger, the sickness. I grew up my father's only son, helping him on the fishing boats. What we did manage to catch would have been just enough to feed us all and sell the remainder for rent if my father hadn't spent so much of it on drink.

So the month after I turned seventeen I made the decision that would turn my world on its head. That morning was the last time I would see my family, and the last they would see of me, for many years at least.

It was a pleasant early spring day, the sun shining from the cloudless blue sky taking the chill from the air. Madam Bones thought it the perfect day to make the trip out across the fields and through the Covington Wood to Fowey. She surely must visit her niece Susan that day as she had just had her first child. Madam Bones walked briskly across the fields from Coombe Farm carrying her picnic basket, she passed two gentlemen out for a slow stroll. Glimpses of St Catherine's Castle became visible through the trees as she approached the edge of the wood. Madam Bones could see a blue shape on the ground and as she cautiously walked closer she saw that it was the body of a young woman.

Her hair was long and dark, swept around her head in a tangle with the leaves. The woman's dress was hitched up around her knees, one arm palm up on the ground and the other laying across her chest. As far as Madam Bones could see, the girl wasn't breathing.

The food shortages in the area had been going on for a few years now and it had become more common place to find the dead bodies of the poor. While disease remained a huge killer, starvation was slowly rising among some classes of people. Madam Bones was concerned as she approached the dark haired woman after all she was a kind church going lady. As Madam Bones knelt in the ground she placed the basket beside her. And the dark haired woman sprung to life. She flung her left hand forwards and snatched the bonnet off the lady's head, unconcerned for the hat pin ripping out hair. The Girl pushed with all her might and Madam Bones tumbled to the ground calling for help as the girl picked up her basket and ran.

Harriet ran, she shoved the bonnet deep into the basket and pulled out some bread, taking a bite out of it while she ran, savouring the food in her mouth for the first time in days. The screams for help from the lady behind her rang loud in her ears and she forced her legs to move faster, to escape. She ran, faster than she ever had before, as fast as her poor tired, starving body could, but it wasn't enough. Fear gripped her and for the first time she thought about getting caught, and the consequences of it.

The thundering of feet, both her own and those of her persuers roared in her ears. She took in gasps of air, breathing as deep as she could, and pumping her legs over the uneven ground of the wood. Her flight was for naught as she felt hands on both her shoulders and she was brought to the ground screaming.

"No stop, please! It was just, I'm just... Please! We're starvin',"

The two men held her under her arms and she struggled, pulling this way and that when the woman caught up with them and grabbed hold of her legs. Harriet's skirts were pushed up over her thighs as she struggled to get free, kicking her legs.

"Straight to the magistrate then, stealing a silk bonnet and everything else in this basket." Said the first man.

"A hanging no doubt." Agreed the second man.

When Harriet's name was called she went forward to stand before the wooden frame of the bar. A dark haired, green eyed young woman of five foot two inches. She was grimy but brazen, there was no doubt that she looked coarsened by life, her hands were chapped and raw, her speech thick with her local Fowey accent. Her complexion reddened by the stinging Cornish wind.

It was recorded that she did "feloniously assault Madam Amelia Bones, on the King's highway, putting her to corporeal fear and danger of her life" and that she stole "violently" a silk bonnet and other goods worth eleven pounds and eleven shillings. The judges were unyielding and the law unforgiving. Harriet Potter was sentenced to be hanged for highway robbery.


	2. Chapter 2

Note: This is just a note to say that I didn't quite explain well enough about the Harry/Harriet thing. In part one where I say 'my fathers only son' I didnt think about how it would be taken! I meant that Harriet was the only child who was capable of helping James on the fishing boats. Harriet is a girl. I also want to clarify why I made Harry a girl instead of just using, say Hermione. Mary Bryant was an amazingly courageous woman who faced extraordinary odds and it was this bravery that reminded me so much of Harry, besides I often enjoy girl!harry fic. This plot bunny has been floating about in my head for months now!

PART TWO

Harriet had always heard that highway robbers were noted for their nonchalance in the face of death; the most notorious of them gave banquets in prison on the night before their hangings and went to the noose the following morning swaggering and grinning. Harriet did her best to emulate her predecessors, steeling herself not to react to the words of condemnation, remaining stalwart and outwardly unafraid, though her knees felt weak and she could not help trying to catch the eyes of the two women she had been shackled to in the prison.

On her first night in the prison Harriet found herself chained along one side of the room, facing her were more women, young and old alike all of them looking forlorn. To Harriet's left and right were two other young women. The woman on her left looked at her and said, "My name is Hermione, what is your name? And what are you up for?"

Harriet looked at the woman, she seemed to be a few years older than herself, she wasn't sure what to say so she decided on the truth, "Harriet, from Fowey. Done Highway robbery, I was starving, you?"

Hermione seemed surprised, but collected herself and said, " I am a seamstress, or was. They think I stole some silk ribbons from the shop, which I didn't, but I have no defense."

Harriet spoke quietly, "Well at least I know that I actually did what I was accused of, do you know who really stole them ribbons Hermione?"

Hermione sighed, "Yes, it had to have been the shop girl. But when it was noticed that the ribbons was missing she hid 'em in my shawl." Hermione's brown hair was tangled and her face grimy, her teeth large, but her slight smile was real and lit up her eyes. "I have been waiting for my trial here for weeks now, it's awful, the smell gets so foul and the rats are huge."

To her right another young woman spoke up, she was thin, probably the same age or younger than Harriet, she wore a tattered brown dress and her red hair hung limp down her back in a braid. She leaned forwards around Harriet and spoke to Hermione, "These rats is nothin', and the smell, it's hardly worse than living in one room with my parents and six brothers. I'm Ginny by the way."

"What do they say you done Ginny?" Harriet asked "My twin brothers stole a ham, my brother Ron and I helped them eat it. We were chased, but the twins ran faster than us. Ron's in the mens prison." Ginny said, with a smile on her face.

As soon as her sentence was read out, Harriet was taken away and another prisoner brought forwards to the bar. There was a long file of prisoners coming up to trial that day, young and old, healthy and sick, some loud and obstinate, and a few with broken spirits. The roll call of prisoners was a melancholy one: Romilda Vane stole a few bits of potters, Theodore Nott stole a calf. Most of the prisoners were being tried for theft or assault, or breach of the peace.

Seamus Finnegan, a tall muscular Irishman from County Antrim, twenty six years old, was convicted of stealing eleven heavy iron bolts from his employer; Viscount Parkinson. The viscount being a prominent figure, the case drew local interest, and when Seamus was sentenced to be hanged there was an audible sigh of satisfaction in the courtroom.

No one expected leniency, particularly when the accused were adjudged to be guilty of crimes punishable by death, which included everything from treason to murder to shoplifting, malicious maiming of cattle and shooting at a revenue officer. Cutting down treen was punishable by execution, as was sending threatening letters or tearing down horses or counterfeiting or kidnapping.

After several days, the long lists of cases having come to an end, the hangings began. The townsfolk gathered at the gallows to watch the executions.

Mary was waiting her turn, unaware that events in London were to bring about her deliverance.

In the autumn of 1786 the lords commissioners of the treasury ordered that a new colony was to be formed. In New South Wales, on the southeastern corner of the vast continent that the Dutch claimed under the name of New Holland, and that is now known as Australia. The English Captain Cook, traveling in the Endeavour with the naturalist Sir Joseph Banks, had charted the fertile east coast and all the adjacent islands in the name of King George.

The plantation of the new colony was intended not only to solidify the British claim to the land but to solve the growing problem of jail overcrowding. For well over a century it had been customary to transport British convicts to colonial areas, convict labour had been an essential element in the widening and strengthening of the empire. With the outbreak of the American War of Independence, they could no longer be sent to the American colonies. New settlements had to be considered. Locations considered were; the Atlantic coast of Africa, Madagascar, Algiers, Canada and the West Indies.

Some suggested sending the convicts to work in the fisheries in the North Sea or to the coal mines, or to work in lead factories. But New South Wales, despite its distance from Britain, seemed to offer the best combination of qualities, a temperate climate, inviting terrain, and thousands of square miles of empty fertile land. A clean slate where prisoners could work out their years of exile while building a self sufficient community as subjects of the British crown.

By the time Harriet was sentenced to be hanged, six transport vessels and three supply ships had been chartered and officers and crew assigned for the journey to New South Wales. By the new year in 1787 there was only one thing missing from the ships. Female companions for the hundreds of convicts and unmarried soldiers and officials. After all, an all male society was not to be contemplated; the probable sexual vagaries would be an abomination.* Several suggestions were put forth, but it was decided that female convicts, who were all thought to be 'abandoned' women, ought to be provided for the men, serving their sexual needs while at the same time helping to clear the overcrowded jails.

The judges were ordered to choose from among the men and women condemned to execution or prison, those who were relatively young and strong for transportation to New South Wales. Sixteen were chosen, their names read out at the gallows, the ones that caught Harriet's years were: Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnegan, the tall Irishman from County Antrim, Michael Corner, Ron Weasley and so on, until the final three names, Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley, and Harriet Potter.

When she heard her name called and those of the two women she had befriended in gaol, all of Harriet's stoic defiance fell away, replaced by a puzzled hopefulness. She and the others were to be transported "beyond the seas" to an unnamed destination. They would serve out their seven year sentences in this unknown place and after that they would be free.

She was free now, free of the dread of death.

Seven years was not such a long time, in seven years she would be twenty five,, young enought to start afresh. Hermione and Ginny and Ginny's brother Ron would be going along with her to this new place, to serve their sentences alongside her.

She would not be completely friendless there. With some trepidation, mixed with dee relief, Harriet heard the clerk announce the term of her sentence. His majesty had been graciously pleased to extend the royal mercy to her; she had been saved.

* this is just a not the these were the views of the people at the time, which I absolutely don't agree with, slasher here!

Please leave a review, if you love it or hate it or either. I was disappointed to see that the first review for this fic I got was claiming Harriet was a Mary Sue! Blasphemy! I've seen Mary Sues, and this certainly isn't one, trust me life is going to get worse, and she has huge flaws.


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